Column: The Obamification of America

What happened to the hopeful young man who promised all those great things in 2008?

What's happened to America under Barack Obama?

Our economy is still mired in a recession he still blames on George W. Bush.

We've got 100 million able-bodied countrymen and women who aren't working because they can't find a decent job or they'd rather live off taxpayers.

Our GDP went down nearly 3 percent in the first quarter of this year, supposedly because of the lousy weather.

More probably, it was because the high cost and confusion of ObamaCare has scared the pants off the small businesses of America.

Overseas, the entire Middle East is a disaster and getting worse by the day.

Iraq has taken a turn for the worse in large part because Obama couldn't figure out how to handle Malaki, so he basically decided to abandon ship.

Iraq is sinking into chaos and being colonized by insane religious terrorists. Syria, which has fallen off the nightly news and the front pages for some strange reason, is still hosting a bloody civil war.

Egypt and Libya are broken states. Afghanistan will revert to Taliban control three months after we leave.

Would anyone blame Israel for mounting a first strike against Iran or one of its other enemies? They know that as long as Obama is our gun-shy commander-in-chief, we'll not be doing anything to help them.

Poor Obama. The fire in his belly is clearly gone.

At home only his true believers still believe his wild promises and lofty big-government rhetoric. Overseas, he has no agenda or policy, so he's ignored or disrespected by everyone from Putin to Assad.

Obama's still got more than two years to go on his second term, but he's already acting like a caretaker.

He's lucky he still has the mainstream media by his side or he'd been looking at impeachment.

Imagine if the journalists at the New York Times, NBC or the New Yorker magazine were real watch-dogs, instead of the Obama White House lapdogs they still are.

Imagine if the IRS abuses or the botched launch of ObamaCare had happened under Bush II's watch.

Imagine if a third of Iraq had been overrun by ISIS terrorists in 2007. Or if our ambassador in Benghazi had been killed that year by terrorists.

The front pages of the Times and the Washington Post would have been slathered with new investigative stories and hour-by-hour reports every day.

The liberal media would have personally blamed Bush II and Dick Cheney for every slaughtered person and for every lost village or oil well.

At least today we have Fox News and conservative outlets like Newsmax and Daily Caller to cover the IRS scandal, which, though you wouldn't know it from reading the New York Times, dwarfs Watergate.

But America is stuck with Obama and his protectors in the media for two more years. Our only hope is for conservatives to take the Senate this fall and win the White House in 2016.

Exactly who we elect president in two years almost doesn't matter, as long as he or she knows how to be a cheerleader for America.

I'm so sick of what Obama has done to the spirit and reputation of this great country that I'll vote for the shoeshine boy at the airport if he can make me feel good again about America and her standing in the world.

Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of "The New Reagan Revolution" (St. Martin's Press). He is the founder of the email service reagan.com and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his websites at www.reagan.com and www.michaelereagan.com. Follow @reaganworld on Twitter.